The Football Forecast

UEFA Super Cup: Barcelona vs Sevilla Preview

Barcelona , the 2014-15 UEFA Champions League winner face Sevilla, the 2014-15 Europa League winner, in the 40th edition of the UEFA Super Cup on Tuesday night. While Barcelona are arguably favorites to win the title once again this season, Sevilla will feel they have a decent chance of causing an upset with the teams still effectively going through their pre-season and also anything can happen in 90 minutes of football.

Barcelona, the 2014-15 treble winners, have had a relatively good transfer window, despite the club going through a transfer embargo at the moment. Barcelona have signed Aleix Vidal , and Arda Turan in the summer, but both the players won’t be able to play for the club before January.

Sevilla on the other hand have completed few exciting signings in the summer. Attacking midfield areas have been strengthened by the additions of Gael Kakuta, Iago Aspas, Ciro Immobile and Yevhen Konoplyanka . Steven N’Zonzi’s inclusion from Stoke City raised few eyebrows, while defensive areas have been covered up by the addition of Adil Rami.

Sevilla’s last victory against Barcelona came in the 2010 Spanish Super Cup. Since then, they have played them 11 times and drawn just three of those games. With the odds stacked against them, Sevilla can approach this game with a nothing-to-lose attitude and may be able to take advantage of a Barcelona team that has had a fairly gruelling pre-season schedule. Even with this factor taken into consideration, it is still hard to imagine Sevilla winning this game unless the Spanish champions have a particularly bad day.